Talk:Martin Luther King
MLK in ITPoME Sorry, no. Complete speculation, with no basis in anything. The man's name isn't even mentioned in the book. Unless you are really Harry Turtledove posing as Adam Keller, I can't let that one stand. TR 16:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC) Tory Party Given the relative importance of the Tory Party in the NAU, is an article worthwhile, ML4E? TR 21:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC) I think its worth an article but I was waiting until I got further into the book. I recall there is more info on it and possibly His Magesty's Loyal Opposition (Whigs, I believe) when Bushell gets to Victoria. ML4E 23:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC) Not Prime Minister? Now I never did read T2G and I don't feel any strong desire to change that, but I do have a passing familiarity with it thanks to the Wiki and I was given to understand that, by the time the bulk of the book's action takes place, the political situation among the Commonwealth countries is more or less what it was in OTL at the time of the Statute of Westminster 1931. So shouldn't the Prime Minister be doing the heavy lifting, rather than the Governor-General? Turtle Fan 03:40, October 29, 2010 (UTC) :It's been too long since I've read it for me to comment intelligently. TR 04:57, October 29, 2010 (UTC) ::Its something of an inconsistency in that the PM in Britain seems to have OTL authority as head of government with Charles III as an inspirational figurehead but the G-G of the NAU, who represents the Crown, seems to exercise Executive authority akin to that of the US President. Mind you, I had stopped reading the book before Bushell reached "Victoria" and may be misremembering things from when I first read the book in the early aughts. ::For instance, I thought the NAU also had a PM but there doesn't seem to be any mention of one. I may have mixed things up with the OTL Canadian situation. ML4E 23:27, October 29, 2010 (UTC) :::Assuming you remember correctly, is there a chance the NAU is a presidential system and the G-G is elected? He would serve at the King's pleasure officially, but, as with a Prime Minister, the King's pleasure is a formality and the office goes to the winner of the election. Another possibility, I guess, would be that the elected government of the NAU is subordinate to the crown and the UK where said crown resides. A third possibility would be that the NAU Parliament has authority over domestic policy but the Crown's representative takes the lead on foreign policy issues, and since this can turn into an international incident it was deemed to fall under the latter. Turtle Fan 00:36, October 30, 2010 (UTC) ::::::A directly elected G-G was my recollection when I began rereading the book for this wiki. However, early in there is a throw-away line by Stanley to Bushell to the effect that King's appointment was a smart choice by Charles implying he wasn't elected. Yet his conduct throughout the book is that of a politician taking into account the reaction of the electorate rather than that of his Royal Patron. This was even more pronounced with his aide David Clarke. :::::::In Videssos the Patriarch is chosen by a conclave of leading clerics (the equivalents of bishops, I guess) from three candidates nominated by the Avtokrator. Now translating that to the NAU would be a dumb way to set up a government, but it would be consistent with a G-G who needs the support of both the electorate and the Crown. Maybe the King gives the electorate three candidates to choose among (not unlike Iranian elections, where a presidential candidate needs the Ayatollah's approval to appear on the ballot) or maybe the election is held first and the King chooses from among the top three vote-getters. Turtle Fan 20:03, October 31, 2010 (UTC) Derlavai Tangent ::::::One way to reconcile this is that after each Parliamentary election, there is a vote making a recommendation to the King on the appointment of a G-G for a term of office and who exercises executive powers like a President rather than as a PM. This would make the Parliament exercise powers similar to the US Electoral College in addition to their more usual ones. I believe some Latin-American and European countries elect their President in a similar manner. ML4E 19:38, October 31, 2010 (UTC) ::::Yesterday,my parents brought up the books stored at their place, including most of my HT library (oddly, the 191 books from AF-TCCH are still at theirs--I think I was trying to convince my brother to read them as he was getting curious about history in general). But I now have easy access to GotS, T2G, the first four volumes of Darkness, WW/Col, and Justinian. So maybe, when I have some free time, I'll go great guns, and we can resolve some of these nagging issues. ::::I'm actually most excited about the Darkness stuff. I had 3 and 4 with me, and 1 and 2 at their place. One day, about three years ago, I got a yen to finish out the series, but since it had been a while since I'd read the fourth volume, I decided to go back and re-read, plowing straight through. After several hours of looking through random boxes, I couldn't find the damn things, so I dropped the whole notion. ::::Yesterday, quite literally the first box I opened and looked through had ItD and DD right up top. TR 15:52, October 30, 2010 (UTC) :::::You read the first four and stopped, I take it? By deliberate choice or because you just never got around to finishing it? I found that Book Four became a real grind to get through, that the natural alliance between early-war optimism and the fantasy elements of the setting, which had made the early books so much fun to read, gave up the ghost and sucked the last of the fun out of the series. (Makes sense--There's nothing remotely novel about sorcery in their universe, so it should be taken for granted, and of course the last of the early war optimism wasn't going to survive the Stalingrad analog. Still, I could no longer enjoy the books then as I had before.) Book 6 recaptured some of the old charm: The war was ending, and by this point I was rooting against Algarve even though I wasn't rooting for Unkerlant. (Throughout Book 1 I had actively rooted for Algarve even though it was obvious they were the Germany analog. They had all the legitimate grievances against an unjust peace dictated to them by the last war's vindictive victors and none of the human rights violations. They hated the Kaunians, but so did I--Those guys, both in the east and in Forthweg, were goddamned obnoxious. What turned me against them was not the "special magecraft" of Book 2 but two kick-the-dog moments at the end of Book 1: Spinello's coercing Vanai into sleeping with him and an Algarvian bomber-dragon killing Cornelu's leviathan.) :::::Anyway, Book 6 recaptures some of the atmosphere of Book 1: The science of sorcery has reached a revolutionary new horizon, so its properties are now nearly as much a source of wonder for the characters as they are for the readers. Also, there's the optimism of the war ending tempered with anxiety at the brave new world the postwar era will bring. The most monstrous characters get deservedly bad ends, the most sympathetic characters get the fulfillment of the hope they'd clung to throughout their storm-tossed arcs, and as a whole the farewell is much more satisfying than it was in IatD, which is the only series finale I can really compare it to; the conclusion of Worldwar was too disjointed and dissonant, with some characters wondering what the future held in A and then someone making an offhand remark about how they'd ended up in HB. Turtle Fan 16:44, October 30, 2010 (UTC) Precision vs Accuracy Jonathan, you changed the T2G sub-section to read "66 years old" rather than "in his sixties" as Turtledove stated in the book. Your calculation assumes he was born on the same date as OTL. While not unreasonable, it is not definitely stated. I don't think Turtledove specifically thought about that since its not relevant to the story but butterflys must always be kept in mind. In other words, you went for precision which was not strictly accurate. I have noticed this in the past and have called attention to it. One example that comes to mind was the canonical statement that a dozen cities in the US were destroyed by nuclear weapons which you changed to 12. While that fits the definition of dozen, it was not a proper substitute in context since the dozen was an approximation while 12 is an exact number not supported in story. This seems to arise from your need to substitute digits for spelled out numbers which I find irritating but tolerable. However, it is not acceptable when it damages accuracy so I am asking you to stop and consider and then not do it under those circumstances. ML4E (talk) 17:53, May 4, 2016 (UTC)